Christmas decorating

(If you zoom into the ornament on the bottom right, you will notice that is says “God Blers America”…bought at Target, made in China)

As a military family, it’s difficult to travel all around the world with your entire Christmas collection. This year marks the first Christmas Jim and I have been able to spend together (second as husband and wife.) I wanted to make it special and I wanted to bring all of our Christmas decorations, but I couldn’t. This time next year we will be somewhere brand new. I knew that if I brought all of our stuff here to Korea, we wouldn’t have anything at our next duty station because it would be in transit from here to there. Oh the life of a military wife: what to bring and what to leave behind. (I also left my favorite winter coat at home for this same reason. What was I thinking???)

Since we are newlyweds, we don’t have a ton of Christmas stuff to begin with. I managed to take some of my childhood items, as well as, some of Jim’s. I took half with us to Korea and left the other half at my parents house for next year.

Another dilemma we had was what to do about a Christmas tree. I have a million allergies and getting a real one has never been, and never will be, an option. I was lucky enough to score a tiny tree at a yard sale this past summer for $3. I decided that if we bought a big fake tree here, we would not have one next year. I refuse to have a ton of duplicate items because of the lifestyle we live, traveling here and everywhere, especially two Christmas trees. I opted to have a big one next year and stick with the small one for this year. I think it turned out great.

We have some childhood ornaments on it, some ornaments given to us as a couple, and some brand new ornaments I bought last year at the end of Christmas season 2011.

The nativity set below the tree and the angel on top of the tree were made by me. I found awesome templates here (nativity set) and here (angel) for free! We also plan on getting a nice tree topper and nativity set next year.

I made my mom send me all of my childhood Christmas books so that I could display them on my bookshelves. And of course, my beanie babies, Muppet Babies, and Starbucks Bearistas made the trip to Korea too!

The countdown is on. Only 20 days left until Christmas. Our advent calendar is from Jim’s childhood. It’s almost as old as him!